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'Turkey, hands off Afrin, stop the attacks': Australian socialists

A protest in Sydney on January 21 in support of Afrin. Photo: Peter Boyle

After receiving approval from Russia, the Turkish state has launched an air strike with 69 jets, bombing the Afrin centre and Cindirêsê, Reco, Shera, Shêrawa and Mabeta districts in northern Syria, ANF News reported on January 20.

The progressive forces from northern Syria (also known as Rojava), who support the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria and its system of democratic confederalism that Turkey is seeking to destroy, have called for urgent international solidarity.

On January 21, the National Council of the Socialist Alliance, an Australian socialist group, passed the following emergency resolution.

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Turkey, hands off Afrin, Rojava

The Socialist Alliance (Australia) condemns the air, land and artillery attack by the Turkish military and the right-wing Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups it supports on Afrin, a canton in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria/Rojava.

We call on the Australian government to vigorously protest this latest aggression and to immediately withdraw its ambassador to Turkey in protest. We also demand that the Australian government immediately remove the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) from its decreed list of "terrorist" organisations and recognise it as the Kurdish liberation organisation that it is.

We call on all the international powers in the region to provide urgent military assistance to the revolutionary self-defence forces in Rojava — the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), People's Protection Units (YPG) and Women's Protection Unions (YPJ) — to resist this brutal and unprovoked attack by the dictatorial Turkish regime of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Kurdish freedom fighters who lead the SDF, YPG and YPG have been the most active fighters in the ongoing war to defeat the terrorist Islamic State (ISIS). The bravery and tremendous sacrifices of these freedom fighters enabled the liberation of Raqqa, the former "capital" of the ISIS caliphate in 2017.

The whole world owes a tremendous debt to these freedom fighters and they must not be betrayed and sacrificed to the cynical politics of powerful imperialist and regional capital interests.

The Socialist Alliance pledges to continue to build solidarity in Australia and internationally with the precious revolutionary movement in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria/Rojava.

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